Some deeper thinking on the runways

PARIS — After miles of runway shows, the fall season ended Sunday. Fashion is clearly moving in a darker direction, and the season’s strongest collections conveyed a thoughtfulness and melancholy that occasionally intensified into rage.

Designers cut through the frills and got back to basics. That meant returning to fashion’s original function, as protection, with cocooning layers at Marc Jacobs and primal fur pelt anoraks at Prada. It also meant a newfound focus on construction, seen in Balenciaga’s perfectly rounded jackets and Jil Sander’s gloriously simple coats.

It was also a time for designers to reestablish their identities for a new generation by going back to the looks they do best -- the power woman at Donna Karan and Versace, the aristocrat at Ralph Lauren and Dolce & Gabbana, and the rebel rocker at Christian Dior and Junya Watanabe.

Over the weekend, John Galliano proved why fashion is more exciting in Paris than anywhere else -- because it’s about so much more than clothes. A master storyteller, he took the revolutionary theme born in his Dior couture show across the Atlantic for his own eponymous collection.

Set to the music of Joan Baez -- “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down,” “Blowin’ in the Wind,” “Diamonds and Rust” -- the show was a poignant reminder of the rebel spirit and America’s ability to change from within. Chiffon blouses and skirts painted with wild roses, cropped denim jackets with silver buttons, cowboy boots and horseshoe belt buckles suggested the Western frontier, while a red shearling coat, flat Confederate caps, long skirts and T-shirts worked with stars and stripes hinted at conflicts fought and won. Of course, the spirit of the 1960s counterculture was here too, in the poetry of Baez and her “original vagabond.”

A rebel within the fashion pack, Miuccia Prada left Milan to show her Miu Miu line here this week, intent on distinguishing the label and positioning it as more than just a lower-priced version of Prada. She invited just 100 people (what better way to create a frenzy?) to the presentation at the Left Bank restaurant Laperouse, which has a storied history both as a literary hangout for Alexandre Dumas, Victor Hugo, Emile Zola and others, and as a bordello. Guests were seated in the 14 private rooms where romantic liaisons occurred, many of which still have their original furnishings and mirrors, scratched from mistresses testing their diamonds to see if they were real.

Perched atop shoes with platforms that mimicked the gilded moldings on the walls, the models walked through every room, wearing brocade balloon skirts swept up to one side, some painted with vases of flowers, and round-neck charcoal coats cinched with skinny patent leather belts. The gilded brooches pinned to skirts and sweaters were so adorable you just wanted to reach out and grab them.

After his tough girl collection from last season, when velvet coats came in traffic light red, and slick patent platform shoes with conical heels were sharp enough to be weapons, Alber Elbaz took it down a notch at Lanvin, going back to more unobtrusive cocktail dressing. His foray into satin suits was shaky, with the hips of a magenta jacket padded to saddle bag proportions. (What woman wants to wear that?) And the shaggy furs, so popular on the runways this season, were more beast than beauty.

Elbaz’s most valuable currency is subtlety. Only he would show jewelry underneath a sheer neckline instead of on top, or fasten the back of a dress with a simple silk ribbon. He played with the contrast between sheer and opaque, carving out the sides of a pleated black cocktail dress and replacing them with nude mesh to accent the hourglass shape of the waist. He sliced a blue sequin top with black tulle, and suspended a black satin trapeze dress from the shoulders using a delicate mesh yoke. And what looked like a simple black shift from the back had a French blue satin sash draped down the front, for a most elegant surprise.

Valentino’s collection was perfectly in step with fall’s new toughness, beginning with models marching down a staircase en masse, dressed in sexy black and white. A white silk charmeuse shirt with a necktie was worn with a black crepe miniskirt, and an ivory silk blouse with rivulets of ruffles topped high-waisted black silk pants. A houndstooth suit, with a shawl-collared jacket, expanded on the menswear theme, except Valentino’s was paired with a tulip skirt and a bow belt. Jeans, sequin jackets and clutch purses with prints culled from the work of Jean-Michel Basquiat were a clever way of reaching a younger customer, likely as fascinated by modern art (and museum galas) as she is by fashion.

Marc Jacobs remembered his friend, the late artist Stephen Sprouse, at Louis Vuitton. Sprouse, responsible for Vuitton’s graffiti print of a few years back, also created an abstract leopard print for the French fashion house in 2000. Jacobs splashed it on pashminas and silk shirts, which should have the same appeal as the brand’s ever-widening array of handbags.

This season’s offerings included a silver metallic Vernis Speedy bag, a white mink messenger kitted out with Tadashi Murakami’s multicolored monograms, a metal mesh leopard-print hobo and a patent leather tote with golden headphones for handles.

Oversized and slightly skewed wool bucket hats looked cool, but the clothes were a retread of Jacobs’ own collection, only more luxurious and less layered. That meant stocking caps, puckered and pleated charcoal coats and jackets, sweater dresses worn with fur-trimmed nylon hoods and a knitted cream mink cardigan coat -- for the millionaire slouch. But who could concentrate on the clothes when pop star Pink was groping her new husband in the front row?

After two years of designing clothes for Hermes, Jean Paul Gaultier appears to be phoning it in. This collection was a dull smattering of shearling ponchos, checked pantsuits and gold jacquard skirts, more about watching bags in motion than anything else. The Birkin bag now comes in mink, a menswear check and a sweater knit. But one has to wonder if these seasonal reinventions will start to cheapen the bags, which are covetable not because they are the latest thing but because they are limited in availability, outrageously expensive and classic.

Los Angeles-based designer Sheri Bodell showed her collection for the first time in Paris during the unenviable 9:30 a.m. time slot Sunday, at a location that was a fourth-floor walk-up. Despite a handful of nice pieces -- a metal beaded black halter gown and a white fur coat drizzled with wood beads -- this collection wasn’t quite ready for prime time.

Oh, well, Bodell can always come back to Los Angeles, where fashion week begins March 19.